


Degeneration

by Kakushigo



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, It's either an introspective piece on Tony Stark and why he's an Avenger, Multi, or it's a psychological treatsie on Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-04
Updated: 2015-03-04
Packaged: 2018-03-16 07:52:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3480281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kakushigo/pseuds/Kakushigo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony gave his life so that the others might live.  He paid an ultimate price that they might know happiness.  He would have had no regrets-had he existed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Degeneration

Steve used to think that it was an after effect of sleeping in the ice for 70 years. A feeling of displacement and wrongness was to expected after one had missed a greater part of a century after all. But the feeling never abated, even after he had been awake for ten years. There was something off about it all. The cellphones always seemed a model too old, which made little sense because he came from a time before cell phones. The skyline of New York City always looked a little bare and bereft of something which made even less sense, seeing as he remembered a shorter one.

All this could have been chalked up as coincidence, as a mind on ice having gone a little senile, if not for the fact Steve noticed it in other SHIELD members. The first time the Black Widow had dropped by for some light conversation (and to play matchmaker) he had thought it strange, but as time went by he could no longer write such events off as quirks of character. Natasha, which was one of the names of Black Widow, barely got along with anyone-never mind other SHIELD agents, she certainly never played matchmaker with anyone else. It was not just Natasha though, there was a specific group of them who seemed to automatically turn to him. They came to him for different reasons and he always knew those reasons even if he had never set eyes on that person before.

Like Phil Coulson, whom he had never met until the Chitauri invasion of 2011, he had automatically known that the guy was a huge Captain America fan, owning all the vintage cards set. He knew the guy had a fiancee from Portland, Oregon, who played cello in a world touring symphony-he had known that all without setting eyes on the man or his file. And for some reason, when he heard that Phil had been killed by Loki, Steve felt a personal anger which felt right, felt vindicated. Only afterwards would Steve look back on it and wonder why, because they had only ever exchanged polite greetings, never talked or anything.

The world bucks around him when he learns that Peggy Stark, her husband Howard Stark, and their unborn child perish in a automobile accident that also claims the life of Jarvis, their butler. Stark Industries is split up and sold to the highest bidder, its name lost to history. It does not seem right but there is nothing besides his own suspicion that says it is wrong.

When the Winter Soldier attacks him and Steve sees Bucky Barnes face after all these years all he can think is ' Oh, Natasha isn't going to be happy that he missed the wedding.' (It takes him several months to figure that thought out-apparently Natasha had married Sam Wilson, a veteran of the Falcon project, in the winter months of 2013. It was a private affair, done by a priest with a death sentence who never told a soul. Natasha wants to know how he figured it out, Steve wants to know why he can remember a different version of the events. The whole time Steve knows he never met Sam even once, but he also vividly remembers teasing him about being able to outpace him. It is enough to give a super soldier a headache. )

Sometimes he wonders how people like Bruce Banner, who is a brilliant radiation scientist, end up working for SHIELD. Bruce apologies to him profusely when they first meet and Steve asks why, Bruce stumbles over words as he tries to tell Steve that he does not know why, just knows that it is important and he really is sorry. They are casual friends, more because of Darcy who kidnaps everyone for ' team bonding' and wherever Darcy goes, her Bruce follows close behind. (No one has the heart to tell her that they are not a team, they simply all work for SHIELD and sometimes they even work together.)

But it is when Thor announces that he and Jane are officially going to be joined in the eyes of Midgard and Asgard (inviting Steve Rogers, Natasha Wilson, Sam Wilson, James Barnes, Clint Barton, Bobbi Barton, Darcy Lewis, Bruce Banner, Phil Coulson-who was not actually dead, and Audrey Nathan as guests of honor) that things really start misshaping. Because Thor announces that it will be a dry wedding out of respect ' for our dear friend, Anthony! ' which no one corrects until the next day when they realize none of them know any Anthonys. Thor looks confused and things just keep falling apart from there. (The wedding itself goes off without a hitch once everyone figures out and accepts that there appears to be an extra guest of honor chair that no one can really explain and no one really wants to get rid of.)

The next time the world starts to end, Steve has his shield and has called the others together with "Avengers Assemble" when he realizes that they are not actually a team. They show up anyway and together save the world. Fury commends them, officially starting the Avengers Initiative. Their official headquarters are also SHIELD's headquarters which Steve knows everyone feels just as off-kilter about as he does. They all keep walking to doorways that are not there, try and use technology that has not yet been invented, start talking to someone who is not there, or leave an extra seat open for someone who does not exist.

Their team is balanced but it feels unbalanced, like an arm is missing or something.

Then the truth is out about Steve and who actually funded the expeditions to retrieve him from the Arctic. Because after Howard Stark died, funding stopped and so did the expeditions. Except they obviously did not stop because Steve is here, pulled from the ice by... well, he does not quite remember. Coulson also announces that he remembers being there when Steve was found, but it was not a SHIELD funded expedition-they had been invited by someone. So the Avengers looks and look, searching for an answer. The answer comes in the form of Stefan Strange, Sorcerer Supreme.

"His name was Anthony Stark, but most of you called him Tony." He tells them, sipping a cup of tea. "He was the Iron Man. And he's the reason you’re all here. It was his life: past, present, and future in exchange for this. " He waves his hand around casually, implying everything and nothing. "It is both an illusion and a reality that you live in, as long as he does not exist in here then it shall continue in existence."

The Avengers quietly confer among themselves, though it is not necessary. They can feel the truth, and see how it fits in so perfectly. Tony Stark is their missing man, and they want him back.

"I wouldn't be so hasty." The Sorcerer Supreme replies before they say anything. "You don't know the differences between this world and the other. I think many of you would prefer this one over that one. "

"Why?" Steve speaks for them all, he knows he does.

But it still unsettles him when Stefan looks him in the eyes and says, "This world was designed as a paradise. The price for paradise was one mans hell. Tony Stark is a great man, but he was not a good one. "

"You speak as if he's dead." No one likes that idea, they want their empty space to be alive. To forget to eat and sleep because he needs to upgrade Clint's hearing aids, because Natasha needs better high heels, because Pepper needs these papers filed. (Pepper Potts, Steve now knows, was Tony's right hand women and CEO of Stark Industries. Not a far cry from the business tycoon she is in this life.)

Stefan seems unperturbed. "If he loses this world, he will be. His guilt will move him to take his own life. " Then he offers his own bit of advice, a choice he knows he will make. "Enjoy his gift, forget him."

Sam stands and starts pacing, automatically planning. Trying to make all the pieces work in such a way that nothing will be compromised. "Why are you telling us this?"

Stefan gives it to them simply, starkly, in black and white. "You have a choice. Forget and live here forever or remember and go back to the old world. "

The decision is never spoken of, Steve has no idea what the others decided. His personal decision was to remember, and he does not regret it. He does not regret remembering the good Tony had done and the evil Tony had done when he tried to do right. Some days it is hard to remember that he traded Paradise for this, for fighting day in and day out for freedom but in the end he knows he could have never forgiven himself for forgetting Tony-for forgetting Iron Man. The child of Maria and Howard Stark who is brilliant and dangerous, who has the ability to make gods and men bend to his whim.

Even as the world falls to ash, as Steve walks to what he knows will be his death (he never wanted to be a martyr, but he would rather die a martyr then an old man) Steve knows that it was best that at least one of them remembered. He has no idea if the Natasha he fights beside was also the one who is sanity to Bucky and wife to Sam, has no idea if the Bruce he sees is the same one that used to follow Darcy around with a happy expression, but it does not matter. There are heroes, there are men, there are gods-then there are the Avengers. No matter how hard time and space may try they will always find their way back to each other even if that means on other sides of war lines, on the wrong end of each others guns.


End file.
